The cartel met on Wednesday to discuss terms of a potential deal to cut production for the first time in eight years in an effort to prop up prices that have fallen by more than half since 2014 due to oversupply.

The Dow Jones industrial average rose around 70 points at the start of trading in New York, hitting a new record intraday high, with energy stocks boosted amid a reported deal to cut production.

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An Opec deal would be aimed at cutting into a global oversupply of oil that has severely depressed prices since 2014. A proposal would probably mean the group cutting production by more than a million barrels a day, which represents about 1 per cent of the global oil supply.

The outlines of the deal emerged as ministers on their way into the meeting struck a markedly more optimistic tone, signaling the group’s three largest producers -- Saudi Arabia, Iran and Iraq -- have overcome differences on how to share the burden of cuts.

Saudi Arabia's energy minister said that the sentiment was "optimistic”.

Business picture of the day

Business picture of the day

Leading international UK-based banks are in advanced stages of planning to shift operations to Paris as London braces for the impact of Brexit, France's chief financial regulator has said.
Paris is among a number of European cities seeking to woo firms considering a move away from London to maintain their access to EU markets, and faces competition from Dublin, Frankfurt and Luxembourg, among others.

Drug firms Pfizer and Flynn Pharma have been fined nearly £90m by the UK’s competition watchdog for “unfair” pricing to the NHS after hiking up the cost of an anti-epilepsy drug by up to 2,600 per cent.
The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said these “extraordinary price rises” have costs taxpayers “tens of millions of pounds”.

Getty

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Italian banks' shares fall after vote - Monday December5

Shares in Italian banks have again lost ground in early afternoon trading, following Prime Minister Matteo Renzi's heavy defeat in Sunday's referendum.
The shares have been dragged down by fears that a rescue of the troubled Monte dei Paschi bank might fail.

People stream into the Apple store on 5th Avenue on Black Friday in New York .
Crowds were thin at U.S. malls and stores on Black Friday morning, formerly the traditional start of the holiday shopping season, with stores opening earlier and online sales expected to take the biggest share of gains in retail sales over last year.
In the New York and Chicago areas, shoppers said stores were less busy than previous years on the day after the Thanksgiving holiday.
The pictures similar in the UK the action has shifted from high street stores to become a predominantly online event

Reuters

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Nintendo shares jump after it announces the launch date for Super Mario Run - Wednesday 16 November

The hugely anticipated game is an attempt to capitalise on the smartphone gaming market after the phenomenal success of Pokemon Go.

Getty

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Pound rises as High Court rules against Theresa May triggering Article 50 without Parliament - Thursday November 3

The pound has risen against all of its major peers on Thursday after the Government announced it cannot trigger Article 50 without parliament approval and the Bank of England said it is no longer expecting to cut interest rates this year.

Environmental groups expressed dismay at the Government’s decision to give a third runway at the airport the go-ahead – and Greenpeace vowed to challenge it in the courts.
Allowing Heathrow to expand will create “a serious obstacle” to meeting the UK’s commitments on climate change and reducing air pollution, a leading scientist has warned.

Reclaim the Power

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Nearly 10,000 people in China apply for one job - Monday October 24

Nearly ten thousands Chinese jobseekers are competing for one position: an officer worker at a political organisation.China's annual civil service recruitment drive began on October 15, with more than 27,000 vacancies on offer in over 120 central departments - drawing about 1.4 million applicants this year.
Job seekers registering for the civil exams are required to pick the positions they are most interested in when they sign up for the test but one job was more popular than others.
China's annual civil service recruitment drive began on October 15, with more than 27,000 vacancies on offer in over 120 central departments - drawing about 1.4 million applicants this year.

Reuters

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Price of wine set to soar as production nears 20-year low - Friday 21 October

Vineyard manager Antonio Navarro looks at grapes ready to be harvested at the Casa Bianchi vineyard in San Rafael

Reuters

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Banks consider ‘moving London staff to Luxembourg to get access to EU’ - Wednesday 19 October

The head of financial development for Luxembourg said a string of overseas banks and fund managers had explored moving London staff to the tiny country since the Brexit vote.
Nicolas Mackel said there had been “strong interest” from US and other non-EU firms assessing their options since June’s referendum.

Rex

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The pound falls below €1.10 for the first time since March 2010 - Monday October 17

The pound has fallen below €1.10 for the first time in six and a half years, since March 2010.
Sterling has been under pressure since Britain voted to leave the European Union.
The pound has fallen by almost 20% against the against the dollar since the Brexit vote, trading below $1.22 and €1.10 on Monday.

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Brexit: US banks are planning exodus from the UK, French minister says - Friday October 14

French finance Minister Michel Sapin said that US banks had confirmed to him they would move some activities out of Britain to other European countries as the UK prepares to leave the EU.
Sapin revealed that the executives of major US banks have told him they were working on contingency plans, after their meeting last week in Washington.

Tesco has removed a number of popular products such as Marmite, Bovril and PG Tips from its online store following a price row with supplier Unilever over the plunging pound.
Multinational household goods giant Unilever has reportedly demanded a 10 per cent price rise in its products, including those made in the UK, to offset the higher cost of imported goods.

Reuters

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FTSE falls after record mid-session high - Wednesday October 12

Britain's index of leading shares slipped on Wednesday from record highs reached in the previous session, partly reflecting currency moves which weighed on some of its global companies
The blue-chip FTSE 100 equity index, which hit a record high of 7,129.83 points on Tuesday, fell 0.5 percent to 7,038.22 points. The FTSE 250 mid-cap index fell 0.4 percent but also remained near record highs reached this month.
The dollar dipped while sterling rebounded a touch from a brutal sell-off this month, as British Prime Minister Theresa May's offer to give lawmakers some scrutiny of the process behind Britain's plans to leave the European Union calmed market fears of a "hard Brexit".

Samsung finally bowed to pressure, permanently ceasing production of its fire-prone Galaxy Note 7. The move came after replacement versions of its flagship phone phone - which Samsung claimed were safe - also burst into flames. October 12 2016.

The British pound has suffered a sudden collapse hitting a new 31-year low against the US dollar in mysterious circumstances, sparking market chaos in “insane” early trading.
The drop was sterling's biggest since Britain voted to leave the EU in June.
Sterling plunged more than 6 per cent to $1.1841 in two minutes, prompting traders to speculate about a possible trigger.

Sterling has continued its “slippery decline” as ongoing fears over the consequences of "hard Brexit" haunt investor attraction towards the currency.
The currency has fallen below the “psychologically important” $1.27 level, down 0.3 per cent to $1.2695 in early trading on Wednesday, extending Tuesday’s selloff.

Sterling’s broke through its post-referendum low to reach levels not seen in over 30 years.
sterling hit an intraday low of $1.2736 on Tuesday morning. That surpasses the post-referendum low of $1.2798 reached on the day after the vote, which was the lowest level seen since the mid-1980s.

Chancellor Philip Hammond has apparently rejected the plan of his predecessor George Osborne to slash corporation tax to just 15 per cent in the wake of the UK’s Brexit vote.
In early July Mr Osborne said he wanted to push the levy on company profits to 15 per cent as a bold signal to global companies that the UK is still “open for business” despite the vote to leave the EU.
In his speech to the Conservative Party conference in Birmingham today, Mr Hammond made no reference to that 15 per cent goal, merely referencing the existing policy for the levy to decline to 17 per cent.

AFP/Getty

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Global stock markets rally as OPEC agrees to slash oil production for first time since 2008

The Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) has struck a deal to cut production for the first time in eight years, sending crude prices surging.
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Oil price surges as Russia, Saudi Arabia promise co-operation
In a decision led by a rapprochement between Saudi Arabia and Iran, who had repeatedly clashed during previous meetings, OPEC ministers decided to cut production by 750,000 barrels a day, down to 32.5 million barrels.

Rex

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Apple to move London HQ to Battersea Power Station - Wednesday September 28

Apple is to establish a new London headquarters at Battersea Power Station, one of the city's most recognisable landmarks.
The tech giant will occupy about 500,000 square feet of space across six floors of the central Boiler House from 2021, moving 1,400 employees there from eight offices around the capital.
It will account for 40 per cent of the development’s total office space.

Yahoo revealed it has been hit by what could be the biggest data breach in history, with half a billion user account details stolen.
While its users are still digesting the news, the massive breach could also have bigger implications and compromise Yahoo’s recent agreement with Verizon, its future parent company, costing it hundreds of millions of dollars.

Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan have pledged more than $3bn (£2.3bn) toward a plan to "cure, prevent or manage all disease within our children's lifetime".
The couple pledged the money as the next big investment by their philanthropic company, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, which is also focused on education, poverty, and equality.

The OECD has slashed its 2017 growth forecast for the UK in half as a result of the Brexit vote and warned of “very high” uncertainty ahead.
The multilateral economics institution had projected UK GDP growth next year of 2 per cent in June, but today reduced that to just 1 per cent in its latest Interim Economic Outlook.
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That was easily the largest downgrade for any major advanced economy.

Never underestimate Mike Ashley’s capacity to spring a surprise.
A matter of days after a tumultuous, and indeed historic, AGM at which the Sports Direct boss’s independent shareholders voted against the re-election of his chairman Keith Hellawell and backed a trade union motion calling for an independent review into governance and working practices at the business, he appears to have caved in. At least on the latter.

One of the world's most iconic models of her generation, Kate Moss, has announced plans to start her own talent agency this month.In an interview with the Business of Fashion she revealed that her new venture – the Kate Moss Agency – won’t only look after emerging models but will also sign actors and singers. Her announcement coincided with London Fashion Week.

Deutsche Bank shares slumped after receiving a $14 billion (£10.6 bn) claim from the US Justice Department to settle an investigation into the firm’s sale of residential mortgage-backed securities, a figure the German lender said it’s not willing to pay.
“Deutsche Bank has no intent to settle these potential civil claims anywhere near the number cited,” the company said in a statement early Friday in Frankfurt.
“The negotiations are only just beginning. The bank expects that they will lead to an outcome similar to those of peer banks which have settled at materially lower amounts.”

Bloomberg

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John Lewis posts 75% profits slump - Thursday September 15

John Lewis Partnership, the owner of John Lewis and Waitrose, has reported a 75 per cent drop in profits for the six months to July, citing "deep structural changes in the retail market".
Half-year profits have sunk to £56.9m, down by £167.1m on last year.
The profits slump includes an exceptional charge of £25m for the write-down of property assets it no longer plans to develop for Waitrose.
But even excluding the exceptional charge, profits for the latest half year were down 14.7 per cent to £81.9m.

France's financial prosecutor on Wednesday sought a three-year jail term for former budget minister Jerome Cahuzac, who was forced to quit government three years ago over the discovery that he owned a secret bank account abroad.
Cahuzac, 64, a plastic surgeon by profession who was appointed budget minister when Socialist President Francois Hollande took power in 2012, stands accused of tax fraud and money laundering.

Cash machines across the UK will start to dispense the Bank of England’s first plastic £5 note on Tuesday morning and it is designed to be safer and stronger.Each note is expected to last around five years - two and a half times longer than their paper counterparts - because of the durability of the polymer material.

The ruling that Apple must pay the Irish government €13 billion Euros in back taxes over its "sweetheart" deal in the country ignited fury in the company's boss who called it "maddening" and "political".

AFP/Getty Images

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ITV withdraws bid for Peppa Pig owner - Wednesday August 25

ITV withdrew its £1bn offer for Entertainment One, owner of the popular children’s television franchise “Peppa Pig,” the company said in a statement.

Scotland’s revenues from North Sea oil have collapsed by 97 per cent in the past year as oil prices have plummeted, reigniting a fierce debate over whether an independent Scotland could finance itself.
Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Willie Rennie said: “The nationalists' case for independence has been swallowed up by a £14 billion black hole.”
Taxes collected from oil production fell from £1.8 billion in 2015 to just £60 million in 2016. The gap between tax revenues and what Scotland spends is now 9.5 per cent, or £14.8 billion, compared to a 4 per cent deficit for the UK as a whole.

Swiss watch exports to the UK rose by 13.4% in July as tourists exploited the drop in the value of the pound to snap up luxury goods.
The Federation of the Swiss Watch Industry said watches worth 110.2m Swiss francs (£87m) were exported to the UK last month, the best figures since November 2015.

Getty Images

"We don't know [if a deal will be reached]," Khalid al-Falih said as the talks started.

We will find out during the meeting. I think the sentiment generally is optimistic and positive," he added.

Iraqi oil minister Jabbar al-Luaibi said Opec ministers were unanimous in favour of an output cut, following a breakfast meeting.

"The extent of the [price] move shows no one wants to miss the boat. There must be a general consensus that there will be a cut, whether it’s going to be bullish, I don’t know, but it’s the domino effect," Tamas Varga, analyst at PVM Oil Associates said.

Analysts at Goldman Sachs, Barclays, and ANZ agree that oil prices will quickly rise above $50 per barrel should Opec come to an agreement. Without a deal, the consensus is for a fall to the low $40s.